Suicide group forced out after neighbours complain about the sight of coffins

Last week, Zurich city council ordered the charity to stop using the apartment and apply to change its official function from a residence to an 'assisted suicide flat'.

"Dignitas continued to ignore the ban and still carried out assisted suicides," said official Daniel Scheidegger. "So we decided to enforce the ban."

A Polish woman was turned away yesterday. Christiane Keller, 61, who lives next door to the apartment in the suburb of Staefa, said:

"The woman who was supposed to die was taken away again. I don't know where she went."

The police were called and local authorities later arrived to change the locks on the flat, preventing the Dignitas workers from entering.

Since 2003, more than 70 Britons have ended their lives at a Dignitas clinic.

The last known Briton was Carol Kates, a 55-year-old nurse from Lincolnshire, who took a cocktail of drugs in May.

Dignitas was forced to move from a previous Zurich apartment in July when residents complained. Six people have taken their lives at the new flat in recent weeks, residents say.

The council estimates that 200 people a year would have committed suicide in the apartment had Dignitas been allowed to continue.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland. The laws, some of the most liberal in the world, have led to 'suicide tourism', where terminally ill foreigners travel to Switzerland to die.

Miss Keller said the constant coffins had disturbed residents and led to health problems.

"It was an enormous burden," she said. "We are not against assisted suicide but it should take place in a location where the neighbours are not involved in it."